A 69-year-old British woman, Janet Fordham, died in Ghana after travelling there to try to recover money she had lost to a series of romance scams, an inquest in Exeter heard. Devon and Cornwall police say Fordham was defrauded of between £800,000 and £1 million over about five years and had sold her home and land, ending up living in a caravan in Devon.
Fordham began using online dating sites in 2017, her daughter-in-law Melanie Fordham told the inquest. She was first targeted by a man who claimed to be a British army sergeant major stationed in Syria and later said he would retire to the UK and buy a house with her; Fordham is believed to have handed over around £150,000 to that contact. She was subsequently cheated by someone posing as a diplomat. Money was moved by bank transfers, post office wire transfers and possibly via a travel agent, the court heard.
In October 2022 Fordham flew to Accra after a man in Ghana, known to her as Kofi, said he could help trace and recover some of her funds. Kofi told her he was a doctor who had come across her details while working part-time in a phone shop. Their contact developed into a personal relationship and Fordham agreed to marry him, despite family and police efforts to discourage further contact or payments. She was assessed as having capacity, so authorities could not legally prevent her travel.
On 14 February 2023, while being driven by the man in Ghana to meet a family member about their planned marriage, the vehicle reportedly swerved and flipped onto its roof. Fordham, who was not wearing a seatbelt, suffered fatal head injuries and died. Police said no third party was involved in the crash and the driver later admitted a driving offence.
Detective Sergeant Ben Smith described Fordham as the victim of prolonged fraud between 2017 and 2022. Senior coroner Philip Spinney noted inconsistencies and gaps in the evidence about the collision and said it had not been closely examined, but concluded that Fordham died from a head injury probably sustained in a road traffic collision.